1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of producing reflective labels with desired letters, picture images, and the like recorded thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printing apparatuses, such as printers, typewriters, and word processors, of a thermal transfer printing system have been recently developed and put to a wide variety of uses from small, personal use to business use.
Thermal transfer printing is achieved by heating required ones of a number of heating elements provided on a thermal head, while a thermal transfer ink ribbon is put into close contact with predetermined printing paper by the thermal head, thereby causing the portion of the heat melting ink in contact with the heating elements via the backing member of the ink ribbon to be melted and transferred to the printing paper.
On the market, there are a number of apparatuses for producing labels and the like with desired letters and picture images printed on tack paper, tack film, and the like utilizing the above described thermal transfer printing method.
There are increasing demands for labels designed to provide excellent visibility. Hence, there is proposed a label using, as the above mentioned tack film, a reflective film including an ink layer reflecting light beams and applied with an adhesive agent on the backside thereof and having letters and picture images formed on the surface of the reflective film by the thermal transfer printing method.
The above described reflective film has quite a high possibility of being used outdoors, in factory sites, in construction work fields, and so on, because of its improved visibility and other characteristics. Therefore, excellent resistances such as weather-, abrasion-, heat-, and chemical-resistance are required for such reflective films.
Accordingly, there is also devised a label intended for improved printability and durability of the print by providing a chemical layer mainly containing polyester or the like on the reflective film so that the surface of the reflective film easily accepts the heat-melted ink of the ink ribbon.
However, even if an image receiving layer is provided on the surface of the reflective film, since the print image is exposed on the surface, there are limits in the weather-resistance and abrasion-resistance of the image receiving layer against such external agents. Therefore, under such severe usage conditions as outdoors, in factory sites and in fields of construction work, it is impossible for the print image to maintain its original state for long. Most of such image receiving layers are not provided with chemical-resistance.